


A South Downs Cottage Sufficed

by Snowfilly1



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Christmas, Comforting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Warlock Dowling, Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, M/M, Nanny Crowley (Good Omens), POV Crowley (Good Omens), Post-Canon, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), The Dowlings' A+ Parenting (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28619814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowfilly1/pseuds/Snowfilly1
Summary: Crowley's peaceful evening, waiting for Aziraphale to come back with the Christmas shopping, is disturbed by a knock at the door and an unexpected reunion.Eight years after the world didn't end, there can still be new beginnings.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Warlock Dowling, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Warlock Dowling
Comments: 30
Kudos: 146
Collections: Grow Better / Scribbling Vaguely Downwards - Holiday Swap '20





	1. December 23rd

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Libbyfay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Libbyfay/gifts).



> A holiday exchange gift for my friend Libbyfay, a wonderful writer and a lovely person. I hope you enjoy, my dear. This was a combination of the 'found family' and 'Warlock has something to tell his Nanny' prompts, although set far in the future for that one!
> 
> Unintentional not-quite-deadnaming to start with and some discussions on less than supportive parents in chapter 2. But it's soft. 
> 
> The title is stolen from and changed from a line from 'In the Bleak Mid-Winter,' a beautiful carol.

Crowley is curled under a blanket, feet on the couch, head dangling off the edge and no longer trying to ward off sleep. The fairylights he'd draped everywhere shimmer in the half light of their living room; the old clock from the shop is ticking a soft counterpoint to his breathing and the distant sound of the sea. Aziraphale won't be long. 

He drifts; loses himself on the fringes of sleep for a while. Half dream and half expectation; of Aziraphale coming back with dinner and wine, and them spending the evening together, and he's not sure if he's thinking about tonight and the slow dawning of Christmas Eve, or all the other times they've done this over the millennia. 

He's content, he recognises vaguely. 

The doorbell shrieks. 

Crowley blinks, trying to cling on to the fractures of rest and hazy comfort. 

It shrieks once more, then trails off into a few hesitant bursts as though whoever it is isn't really sure they want an answer. 

'Coming,' he shouts in an approximation of Aziraphale's best 'Anti-Customer-Service' tone. They don't get callers here; that's the attraction of it. A space that they're carving out just for them, one that Heaven and Hell have never sullied. 

Oh, it still feels raw and unfinished at the moment, but it'll come. He has faith in that, and in Aziraphale, if nothing else. They'll make a home out of this place eventually. 

But he doesn't want anyone else here. His fangs are itching as he stalks across to the front door; his phone's suddenly in his pocket, because he wants to talk with Aziraphale with an intensity that scares him. He reaches out for the wards around their garden and finds - nothing. 

Stop being ridiculous, Crowley scolds himself. Stop being afraid. 

He's been trying that for six thousand years, and it's never worked before. 

Heaven and Hell wouldn't knock, he tells himself. It's a human. 

So he opens the door the human way; folding his body in the lea of it, a security chain still on and one foot jammed in the way. Scales scrape across wood, and he feels ridiculous; a demon scared of a human but it's not meant to be like this, it's not, it's not...

'What?'

Crowley's played about with time enough to know what it feels like when the world literally stands still. This isn't it, but it's close enough that it gives him the same feeling. 

'What the fuck?'

Warlock grins up at him. 'Hello?'

***

It takes Crowley a moment to swallow down the sick choking taste the adrenaline's left behind. A moment longer for his stupid heart to get the message and slow down; the cold sweat easing down his back will have to stay there until he can shower and change and he can't do that while Warlock's staring at him. 

'Warlock?'

He gets a nod in reply, although he'd hardly ever used the kid's given name. 

'Nanny doesn't seem quite right?' Warlock asks, and there's a gentleness, an understanding there that reminds Crowley vividly of Aziraphale. 

'Uh...yeah. Call me Crowley,' and there's another nod in reply. 

'Are you alright?' Crowley asks next, because why would anyone ever come and see a demon unless they needed something, however often The Them and Anathema and Newt and the others come to visit...

'I...Yes, I'm fine.'

'Right, um...' He's not good at this. 'Come in?'

Warlock crowds close as he comes in, seemingly immediately comfortable as he stands in the hallway and glances around. Crowley suggests to the door that it had best shut quietly; he pauses and looks around a moment too late, sees their cottage through Warlock's eyes. 

It doesn't fit. 

Aziraphale's done things with space that make his head hurt in order to fit more book rooms in. Crowley's got light shining through windows that shouldn't get any to give the plants the best growing conditions. And although it's still not completely decorated, there's enough stuff scattered throughout to make it obvious that two people with wildly different taste live there. 

Aziraphale's tartan blanket with Crowley's phone on top of it, for a start. 

Warlock pauses, glances once around and says very firmly 'you're not human, are you?'

'Good observation, Spawn.' The last word twists with a fondness he can't help. 

'OK.' 

He falls back, awkwardly, on Aziraphale's habit and makes them both tea. Warlock trails after him; stands alongside him and watches in a way that reminds Crowley sharply of maybe a decade ago, Warlock peering at the cake mixture they'd been making and asking if they could add sneezing powder to some of it. 

This Warlock is almost as tall as him, still shaggy haired but with purple slashes through the brown, wearing a hoody and jeans. The sneer Crowley had got used to in the last year or so they'd spent together has been replaced by a genuine curiosity that reminds him of Aziraphale. 

Everything reminds him of Aziraphale. He really ought to get over that. 

'So...' he tries once they're settled down, Crowley perched on his usual spot on the couch and Warlock pacing the room, looking at things, 'what brought you here, Warlock?'

'Not Warlock...Lockie...' and there's a tension there all of a sudden, a slight chance of posture that Crowley recognises. 

'That's a good name. Pronouns?'

'Fucked if I know. You can use he if you like.' 

'Course.' He's seen Aziraphale navigate this conversation a few times; he's been on the other end of it plenty more. 'What brought you here, Lockie?'

'So, I'm at University in London. There was a book I needed, this really dumb ancient textbook I couldn't find anywhere, and there's this shop in Soho? Has all sorts of weird and odd books?'

'I know it,' Crowley replies, which he thinks is probably the biggest understatement of his life. He'd been there on an endless September evening when the sky tasted of smoke and autumn, when Aziraphale had first seen the building for sale while they'd been walking back from the theatre. He'd seen the gleam, like star shine, come into Aziraphale's face as they'd paused at the door and listened to the swish-swish of cartwheels on the road behind them , and he'd loved that place more ardently than anywhere else on Earth until they'd come here. 

'There was a picture of you on the desk,' Lockie continues. 'I found my book, and the guy serving - Newt? - I asked him about the picture. And he didn't say anything, just kept not answering me and then this woman came in and she looked at me like...like...well, like you did when you saw me just now.

'Like I was a ghost or something.'

Crowley nods. He wonders what Anathema read in her book about Lockie; she'd certainly heard enough of their stories about him over the years to recognise him. 

'She wouldn't tell me anything about you and Francis, don't worry.'

'She wouldn't. She still won't tell Aziraphale what her teacake recipe is, and he's been asking for years.' 

Lockie comes back to the couch, settles himself in an awkward tangle of limbs on the end furthest from Crowley. 'Is that his name? Francis?'

'Yeah.'

'Where is he?'

'Getting our Christmas dinner stuff,' and it sounds so unbearably domestic that Crowley blushes. The wonder of it, that they can do things like that now. Have Christmas dinner together. Live together, openly and unafraid enough that he can look at Lockie and say 'he lives here.' 

'No shit, Sherlock. Course he does.'

He ignores the suggestion that perhaps they hadn't been as discreet as he'd thought and asks 'How'd you find us?'

Crowley listens open mouthed to an account involving looking Newt up on the electoral roll, a lot of online stalking and finally seeing and recognising the Bentley. He's not sure it all hangs together, but he's not prepared to ask too many questions about weird coincidences, in case there's a proper answer. 

He's prepared to accept that the Bentley is very noticeable, at least.

'And why?'

Lockie shrugs. 'Had summat to tell you, I guess. Never even had a chance to say goodbye, did I? And...you were always kind to me.'

Crowley adjusts his glasses. They don't need it, but he adjusts them anyway. A couple of times. He's still fussing with them when he feels Aziraphale arrive; the subtle warmth of his presence that feels like coming home and being safe and being cherished all at once. 

'In here, angel. Got a guest.'

Aziraphale stands in the doorway with the light halo-ing behind him, coat damp with mist, hair curled wildly with it; looks like all of Crowley's hopes and dreams taken form. 

And then, because he's always been braver than Crowley, more able to do the right thing when it matters, there's a flurry of movement and Crowley finds himself pulled in for a hug. Aziraphale's hand outstretched to Lockie, a half altered memory of a wing out-streched in Eden. 

Lockie comes to stand with them, taller than Aziraphale now. Loops an arm round Crowley's waist, and he's not sure which of the three of them says it first but there's a rough voiced chorus of 'I missed you.'


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crowley gets himself into a bit of a guilt spiral in this one, and they've all got a lot of work to do...but it's fine.

They talk into the night, or Lockie and Aziraphale do, after Crowley finds himself struggling to keep up with it all. He wants to accept it; wants to be allowed to have what appears to be just good luck; doesn't want to believe in it in case it gets taken away again. 

He nods along to Lockie's story about his Dad 'fucking off to America and not coming back, the tosser.' 

He laughs in all the right places when Lockie describes his first few driving lessons and manages a quip about him not touching the Bentley. 

He watches - and loves - as Aziraphale has a brief conversation with him about identity; hears the echo of the same speech he's heard in the bookshop time and time again. Lockie doesn't have a lot to say in response, but Crowley can tell he needed to hear it. 

They eat dinner; Crowley remembers a few things he used to make at the Dowlings and does them again. It's easier now he's not having to hide his use of miracles. Lockie's eyes follow the oven door opening to a snap of Crowley's fingers and he whistles. 

'Is that how you got my remote control truck out the river that day?' Lockie asks. 

'No. He got me to do that for him, because he didn't want to lay on the grass and get wet,' Aziraphale says. 

'No...magic? Whatever you call what you do?'

'Miracles, mostly. Both of us call them that normally. But no, we tried not to use them when we were looking after you. Used a stick to get your car out.'

Dimly, he notices that Lockie looks a bit disappointed to hear miracles weren't an everyday part of his childhood and decides to use as many as possible in his presence now. Presence...and that's what threatens to choke him, leaves him reaching out across the sofa for Aziraphale's hand. 

It's not that he needs the contact, he tells himself, as Aziraphale squeezes his hand in return. He'd be fine without it. 

'Will you come and see us again?' he blurts out and he's cursing himself as soon as he says it, because there's a note in his voice that's only just this side of pleading, only just this side of grief. 

Aziraphale's fingers tighten around his. 

He doesn't pull away. 

'If you'd like me to?' 

'Always. Always, Lockie. I'd always want to see you again,' and a few seconds later, Aziraphale echoes 'and me.'

It's not quite disbelief he sees in Lockie's eyes, but he doesn't think it's far away. Like he thinks or believes he might be unwanted after all, and Someone, he knows what that feels like. 

It's Aziraphale, who can be practical when he needs to be, who eventually asks 'what were you going to do after visiting us, Lockie?'

There's a shrug that looks so much like Crowley's he can't help but smile. He wonders if Lockie had spent as long as he had in front a mirror, practicing it. 

'Dunno. Didn't know if you were gonna be in. Didn't know if you'd want to see me -' Always, always, Crowley's heart demands - 'or whatever. I mean, I do now. Didn't a few hours back... Thought I might get an Uber back, I've got a train back down to Bristol tomorrow. Staying with a...a friend for Christmas, so...'

'I think you're a bit far out in the countryside for an Uber, Spawn,' Crowley tells him. 

'Might have guessed. You know you've got badgers here, right? I saw one when I was walking here. Never seen a badger before.'

'That'll be one of the ones Crowley's declared war on, won't it, dear? I wish you wouldn't fuss so much about them getting in the garden, the poor things will take a while to figure out there's people living here now.'

He ducks his head in acknowledgement, hair falling forward across his cheeks. 'Yeah, it is a bit rural here. Wasn't quite where I saw myself retiring but...' He stops; that day is etched in gold and sunshine in his mind, and dragon selfish, he wants to hoard it against all the centuries to come; share it only with the angel who'd been walking alongside him down the sun dappled lane when they'd first seen the ruins of the cottage. 

'I didn't see myself ending up quite like this,' Lockie replies. 

Crowley swallows down an apology, a sickness of guilt. Settles for looking at Aziraphale and opening his mouth, getting as far as 'can...' before the angel cuts across him. 

'Would you like to stay here for the night? Crowley can run you over to the station tomorrow, if you don't mind his driving.'

'Thank you. Yes, that would be lovely,' and that's another trace of Aziraphale there, the politeness of his response, the way he's folding his hands over each other, and Crowley can't decide what he's feeling, only that he's feeling a lot of it. Like if he speaks now, he'll drown under the weight of everything he wants to say. 

He lets Aziraphale do the host bit, lets Aziraphale make them all cocoa before bed and wraps his hands around the mug for comfort. 

Lockie hugs him goodnight; Crowley hugs him back. Fiercely. Thinks to himself, I loved you, and realises with a start that he must have said it aloud, because Lockie pulls back enough to stare up at him and reply softly, 'I know you do. Wouldn't have come looking for you else.'

He isn't going to have a breakdown over it like this. He's not going to add his grief to Lockie's, because he can see the weight of a thousand unanswered questions and at least one abandonment in his face, no matter how easy their conversation has been; he doesn't want forgiveness if it's driven by pity. 

'You and Aziraphale were always good to me.'

There's a long pause, and then Lockie saying 'night' casually to both of them, and then a door closing softly and footsteps easing away up the stairs. 

'Looks like he's grown out of slamming doors off their hinges,' Crowley mutters and the second half of it comes out as a sob and Aziraphale grabs hold of him like he's drowning too, they're both drowning in this. 

'We don't deserve this,' Crowley manages eventually. His voice is thick with tears that he's kept mostly silent, face pushed against Aziraphale's neck. He'd thought he'd cried himself out after the fire; thought that he'd lost enough not to be hurt again - and certainly not by being given something back. 

'We haven't done anything, love. This was all his choice, it's all up to him.'

'He should hate us.'

'Sssh.' There's a hand dragging through his hair, a hypnotic slowness that calms his body without him thinking about it. 'Crowley, he came looking for us. For you.'

'I should have told him everything.'

'No,' and there's a hint of Aziraphale the warrior in that, a command that expects absolute and unquestioning obedience. 'No, you should not have. We'll have plenty of time to explain to him.'

'He deserves to know.'

'Not at this cost, not right now he doesn't. You don't deserve to be hurt telling him, no, don't you dare argue with me Crowley, you don't get to hurt yourself over this.'

He lets Aziraphale draw him back down onto the couch; doesn't let go of him. Listens to him. 

Eventually, he falls asleep as Christmas Eve dawns, falls asleep in the arms of his lover and Lockie asleep in the spare room that's never had a guest until now. And there's a relief, a peace, that's enough for now. 

***

(There's a short ending and a long ending. Shall we look at them both? They're both true, after all.)

The short one is later that morning; an angel, and a demon, and a young human, bleary eyed and sleep hazed, eating eggs and toast for breakfast. A promise that they'll see each other again; a fixing of dates and places and times so that nothing can go wrong. A vintage Bentley making light of the journey to the train station; a demon resting a hand on Lockie's arm and promising him that one day soon, he'll have the full story, he'll understand what happened. A little miracle to make the train turn up only an hour late (even Crowley's power has limits) and an understanding that there'll be another chapter in their story. 

The long one is later that year, later as the years turns and fade away. It's a complicated one, a messy one, a human one. There are arguments and resentments and time spent working on it. There is joy and friendship and love; there is Crowley and Aziraphale watching Lockie get their Masters degree ('Maths? Where did we go wrong?' Aziraphale chuckles) there are visits to a cottage in the South Downs and a home that ends up moving around the world as Lockie travels, and all the good things that come with a human life, a not quite human family and it is more than enough for them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any comments and concrit very welcome, family dynamics are a bit outside my normal writing sphere!


End file.
